Posts Tagged ‘cadillac news’

Cadillac is returning to the race track with the DPi-V.R, starting with the the 24 Hours at Daytona.

Automakers claim that they learn a lot from their racing programs, well, Cadillac is going back to school: the brand revealed the all-new 2017 Cadillac DPi-V.R race car today.

The luxury brand’s entry will compete in the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series, Prototype (P) class. This represents Cadillac’s second foray in racing. The last time the brand competed in top-level prototype racing was 2002, when the ill-fated Northstar LMP finished ninth at Le Mans.

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“Cadillac is proud to return to the pinnacle of prototype racing in North America after a 14-year absence,” said Johan de Nysschen, president of Cadillac. (more…)

Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen has warned it will take time to rebuild the brand's momentum.

Weeks after telling its 925 dealers in the U.S. that they will need to spend big as part of Project Pinnacle, the luxury brand’s quest to once again be a top competitor in the segment, Cadillac is offering some of its dealers a get out of jail free card.

Actually, according to Automotive News, General Motors’ luxury brand is offering 400 dealers as much as $180,000 to close up their stores by the end of next year if they are unwilling or unable to expend the capital needed to upgrade their retail locations.

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The dealers in question are the brands 400 “smallest” dealers in the U.S., the paper reported. Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen quickly tried to allay fears that the brand is trying to thin out the herd and that the program is being offered as an alternative for dealers who don’t have the resources to make the commitment. (more…)

Cadillac smooths out the edges of its Art & Design design language with the Escala concept.

(This story has been updated to include additional insight into Cadillac plans, including the brand halo product frequently referred to as the CT8.)

Cadillac offered a hint of its future design direction last week, in the form of the Escala concept car unveiled at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. But plans to launch a large luxury sedan that might share that design theme have been delayed and could even be cut, TheDetroitBureau.com has learned.

With General Motors’ flagship luxury brand struggling to boost U.S. sales, despite the addition of several new models, Caddy is facing the prospect that the aggressive product growth strategy outlined by brand boss Johan de Nysschen will be sharply paired back, according to various company sources and industry observers. Among the projects being delayed are the full-size sedan, which was expected to be called either the CT8 or CT9, but also the twin-turbo V-8 that would be used to power it.

What a Concept!

While the South African-born de Nysschen declined to discuss specific changes to the Cadillac product program, he did indicate there could be some slowdowns during a conversation following the reveal of the Escala show car. The twin-turbo V-8, for example, might not make it into production until “the next-generation CT6.” Since biggest sedan in Caddy’s current fleet just came to market, that might mean the high-performance engine wouldn’t be available until around the 2023 or 2024 model-year.

Cadillac smooths out the edges of its Art & Design design language with the Escala concept.

It’s been more than a decade since Cadillac set out to rebuild its once trend-setting credentials with the introduction of the edgy Art & Science design language. Since the debut of the first generation CTS sedan, it’s been tweaking the theme but as General Motors’ luxury brand gets set for what it’s calling an “unprecedented” product blitz, it seems we’re in for another major design makeover.

But if anyone was expecting an equally radical new look, it seems that Caddy is going in a different, more buttoned-down direction. The new Cadillac Escala Concept making its debut ahead of this weekend’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance won’t get lost in the crowd, but it’s certainly not the bold showstoppers of other recent Caddy concepts, like the Elmiraj Coupe Concept that was unveiled in Pebble Beach three years ago.

What a Concept!

The concept “marks an inflection point” for Cadillac, said its President Johan de Nysschen, who declared the Escala, “the next design chapter” for the brand, and promised key elements of the show car “will be incorporated in every one of our new products over the next five years.”

A rendering of a possible mid-engine Corvette from Car & Driver, which has long chased the story.

In the classic Humphrey Bogart film, The Maltese Falcon, detective Sam Spade gets caught up in the chase for a jewel-encrusted bird, it’s “the stuff that dreams are made of,” he says. For sports car fans, especially those who’ve long waited to see General Motors finally deliver a true world-beater, the stuff of dreams is the long-rumored, mid-engine Corvette.

The search has long consumed veteran Detroit journalists like Don Sherman who remains convinced the project is real. And there are growing signs he is right – at least if a flurry of recent whispers and rumors, as well as articles and reports in outlets as diverse as the Detroit News and Car & Driver prove accurate.

There is an unusual twist to this long-running tail being bandied about. Might the mid-engine prototype spotted a number of times in recent months not actually be earmarked for Chevrolet, however? Might this supposedly ultimate Corvette actually be destined to serve as the halo car for the Cadillac brand, a challenge to the likes of the newly updated Audi R8 and reborn Acura NSX?

The Inside Story!

For their part, General Motors officials remain mum. The stock answer is that the automaker doesn’t discuss future projects. And, the reality is, even some of the company’s more senior officials don’t really know. As several current and former Corvette project members stress, that is a highly compartmentalized team operating in its own little world.

The 2017 Cadillac XT5 is the replacement for the SRX. As a luxury utility vehicle, it checks all the boxes.

Fogo Island is an idyllic place, perched about as far to the Northeast as you can go in North America. Study the history of Fogo Island, Newfoundland, and you learn what grit and tenacity are all about. Drive around the island, and you’ll see decades old waterfront buildings that used to process what was the Island’s economic mainstay, cod.

The history and economy of Fogo Island bear a resemblance to the story of one of America’s once storied automakers – Cadillac. Cadillac was formed from the remnants of the original Henry Ford Co. A new company called the Cadillac Automobile Co. was established in August 1902, named after French explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac, who founded Detroit in 1701.

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Cadillac was purchased by General Motors in 1909 and became its prestige division. Some of its classic models today fetch hefty sums at collector auctions worldwide. However, as the years have passed, Cadillac lost the ability to compete on the high end of the luxury car scale. (more…)

Wary of the problems that appear to have caused the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S running in semi-autonomous mode, General Motors wants to take a bit more time before rolling out its own Supercruise system.

And that should allow GM to be much more confident that the technology will work as planned, said Mark Reuss, General Motors’ global product development chief. Among other things, once Supercruise makes its debut on the Cadillac CT6 sedan, it will feature a retinal recognition system designed to make sure that a driver is paying attention to the road, even if their hands aren’t on the wheel.

Tech Talk!

The May 9th Tesla crash appears to have been the result of a system malfunction that failed to recognize when a truck turned in front of the Model S sedan. But there are also some indications the 40-year-old driver was distracted, possibly watching a video on a laptop computer, rather than acting as a human backup to the Autopilot system.

Driving off into the sunset: Cadillac has given up on trying to salvage the ELR plug-in hybrid.

If you’re determined to drive something green that has plenty of luxury touches but a price tag significantly less than that of a Tesla, you might want to head over to your local Cadillac dealer.

The luxury maker quietly pulled the plug on the ELR, a high-line version of the Chevrolet Volt, due a decidedly weak response by American motorists. Though the Caddy plug-in hybrid has been out of production since March, “a very small quantity…remains available at dealers,” Cadillac spokesman Dave Caldwell told TheDetroitBureau.com.

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Launched with high expectations just two years ago, the Cadillac ELR never seemed to charge up the market. Originally priced at $76,000, or nearly double that of a Volt, Caddy tried a number of tricks to build momentum including about $11,000 in price cuts.

The new Cadillac XT5 sport-ute is among the vehicles impacted by the GM shutdowns.

The impact of last week’s devastating earthquake in Japan is now being felt in North America.

Even as some of Toyota’s Japanese operations begin to return to normal after shutdowns this past week, General Motors says it will idle four of its plants in the U.S. and Canada due to shortages of Japanese-made parts.

The Journal of Record!

That said, the closures are “not expected to have any material impact on GM’s full-year production plans in North America,” the maker said in a statement, nor should it have a major impact on earnings for the second quarter.

The 2017 Cadillac XT5 replaces the old SRX. It will be joined by 3 other new Caddy CUVs.

A lot has changed over the last 17 years. When Cadillac launched the original Escalade, the idea of a luxury SUV seemed something of an oxymoron. Five years later, Caddy was again at the cutting edge with the debut of its car-based crossover-utility vehicle, the SRX.

Today, however, utility vehicles — whether car-based or classic “truck-trucks” — rule the road, both in the mainstream and the luxury market. And, if anything, Cadillac has fallen behind competitors like Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The Detroit maker plans to launch four new CUVs by the end of the decade, starting with the Cadillac XT5, the new replacement for the aging SRX.

Reviews You Can Trust!

To get a sense of what Caddy’s delivered, we headed for the hills – the mountainous terrain east of San Diego, where we had a chance to check out both the luxurious side of the new Cadillac XT5 as well as to see how it handled some seriously aggressive driving maneuvers.